As I pursue what ‘becoming’ would look like I have likened the body to amorphous shapes that are always straining to pull apart as much as hold together. Equal and opposite forces are something to represent but also a muscular impulse in my own body, a dance that happens as a mode of production. Drawing from Rubens has had paramount influence on what this means. When I first drew from Rubens’ “Holy Family”, I realized I wanted to draw sheep. Careful rendering of knotted wool gave me a form that at once relates to the intuitive motions of abstract expressionism but that is also specific to representation.

In this slip between familiarity and nothingness there is a possibility for the abject to arise. The abject occurs when something familiar, even loved, passes into the unknown. The unknown is frightening and essential to unique experience. It is also a space to contemplate.